Commissioning Results of the New Compact ECR Ion Source for Electrostatic Storage Ring at KACST

Abstract

A compact microwave ECR ion source with low operating power was tested and commissioned for the ion injector line in the multipurpose low-energy ELASR storage ring facility at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. The compact ECR ion source can deliver singly charged ions with an energy of up to 50 keV and a beam current of up to 50 μA or up to 500 µA with a larger extraction aperture. The plasma in the ECR chamber is driven by a simple transmitter antenna, making the overall size of the ion source only 6 cm in diameter, which is relatively small when compared with other ECR systems. Additionally, the source operates without a high-voltage platform, which significantly reduces the overall footprint and simplifies the system operation. In this paper, the mechanical design and modeling of the ECR ion source are introduced, and the layout of the first part of the beam line is presented along with the numerical simulation results. In addition, the experimental results obtained for the first generated ion beam and commissioning of the ECR ion source are introduced and discussed.